Ford has issued a complaint in a U.S. District Court against Ferrari for its use of the 'F150' name for its 2011 Formula One car. The Detroit automaker claims the use of the moniker infringes on its trademark of the F-150 name for its top-selling pick up truck.

In response to the legal action by Ford, Ferrari decided to name their new F1 car the 'Ferrari F150th Italia' instead of ‘Ferrari F150’. The number ‘150’ celebrates 150 years for the unification of Italy.

"Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the 'F150' in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark," Ford said in the filing. However, Ferrari responded that there could be no confusion between the two.

"Ferrari believes that its own contender in the forthcoming F1 championship cannot be confused with other types of commercially available vehicle of any sort whatsoever, nor can it give the impression that there is a link to another brand of road-going vehicle," read the statement.

I wonder why Ford is making a big fuss out of this. Volkswagen pioneered and made famous the “GTI” moniker and Peugeot has their GTI-labeled model in the 308. Come on Ford, there are more purposeful things to do!

I have been a car fanatic since 1989, when my father was changing our family car then to a Toyota Corolla 1.6 GL fitted with a Twin Cam 16 valve engine that was carburetor-fed, a big deal back in those days. The automobile technology and industry fascinates me and I hope to broadcast these interesting developments to everyone out there through this blog.